


Happily Never After

by mattea1



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Not A Happy Ending, mentions of other characters but mainly Emma and Regina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 12:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14308632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattea1/pseuds/mattea1
Summary: They say everyone has a prewritten happy ending. That some author somewhere has crafted a legend of your life so glorious it will be told for years to come, inspiring generations to believe in true love and that good will always conquer evil. You and I know that’s not true.





	Happily Never After

They say everyone has a prewritten happy ending. That some author somewhere has crafted a legend of your life so glorious it will be told for years to come, inspiring generations to believe in true love and that good will always conquer evil. You and I know that’s not true.   
In my world people sacrifice their happiness, give up their free will in an effort to serve a higher cause, often a deity that demands utter compliance. A few, like myself, never subscribe to a life of faith. While it worked for others, I couldn’t understand molding my life to fit the desires of an alleged god who has a so-called loving and compassionate nature, but had never stepped in and saved me.   
Henry shows up at my door. A little boy with my chin, fire in his eyes and too much confidence for his own good talking about fairytales, curses and a world of magic. The whole drive to Storybrooke he wove a tale of a savior returning a final “Happily Ever After” to the helpless souls who had it ripped from their grasps. I thought he was insane, but a small part of me was curious. He was so passionate. I hadn’t seen a human have a commitment toward anything in years as deep as his was for that book.   
I drove through a small town full of normal houses and ordinary shops. While I knew appearances can be deceiving, my momentary flicker of fear that my child had been raised by some asinine cult began to diminish. I was going to drop him off and begin the journey back to my apartment full of wine and an untouched Netflix queue. I couldn’t get attached to this child with Neal’s floppy hair and my unsettling intuition. While he continued to chat I internally debated over which fast food joint I’d stop at before returning home, rigorously ignoring the growing affection I had for the little soul filled with dreams sitting on the seat beside me.  
Then you opened the door, eyes full of fear and a dress hugging curves so enticing I couldn’t suppress the tremble that shot through my hands. I watched you hug the boy, voice wavering, barely concealing your inner panic before you turned those mesmerizing eyes toward me.   
“You’re Henry’s birth mother?”  
I fell.

I don’t know why I stayed. You loved the boy. While you cloak yourself in a web of lies so intricate even I have difficulty separating truth from fiction I need only catch of glance of you staring at Henry with eyes full of longing and pain to know he has fully captured your heart.   
I should leave. I’m not a savior and my presence just spurs Henry’s fascination with these fairytales. I could hurt him. Hell, I already have. I should leave. I was going to leave so many times. But then you come stalking toward me, flames flickering in your dark eyes, nostrils flaring as you invade my personal space and make demands we both know I’ll never obey and my heels dig further into the ground.   
It’s intoxicating, this poisonous tango that we have been dancing for months. I’m drawn to you and I don’t fully understand why. But you’re equally drawn to me and I can see your confusion, your anger at our magnetic pull each time you storm away from another too-close-to-be-appropriate encounter.   
And Henry, he’s there and he looks at me with so much trust, so much love and I find I’m willing to be a savior if it means he keeps staring at me as if I’m a hero and not some idiotic failure who couldn’t, who wouldn’t take the risk of keeping him.  
One day I return to Granny’s after sitting with him on the playground he so often frequents. You drove by in your Mercedes black as night pausing briefly at the curb as you watch the two of us with a lost expression on your face. When we make eye contact you scowl before tearing off down the street. I finally unpack my suitcase.

Henry was right.   
As he lays there unconscious, hooked to dozens of wires and looking smaller than I’ve ever seen him I realize Henry was right. Then you’re there, shaking and as terrified as I am. You look at me with so much pain, carving my heart out of my chest in one fell scoop. Because Henry’s right. Henry’s right and he’s dying and you, you infuriating woman are to blame and how dare you, how dare you look at me like I could have been your answer.   
I blink, realizing my rage has me pressed up against you, thrusting your head into the unforgiving lockers in the janitorial closet. I can’t break. I can’t lose Henry, not when I realize I’ve lost whatever chance my innermost self had dreamed I’d have with you. Again, I’m not alone. You break too. We fracture together.  
A kiss and Henry wakes up. Everything changes. 

It’s not just Henry any longer. Now there’s “mom” and “dad.” There’s crowds of strangers who call me “savior” and look at this world in black and white. When they come for your blood they don’t understand why I put my body in-between you and their revenge. But you did even then didn’t you?   
This dance didn’t end when magic returned to Storybrook, when I suddenly had a family and you suddenly were a pariah once more. How could we stop when Henry was there, the bridge that kept us eternally docked to one another. There are moments when sleep evades me for the thousandth time that I wonder if we would have been able to stay apart even without him.   
Eventually people realize having a Savior means accepting the Evil Queen. Sheriff and Mayor, Emma and Regina, we become two sides of the same coin. I save you and you save me and we ignore what might have been if we were given different lives.   
Snow, I’m not sure if I’ll ever look at her and think “mom,” keeps bombarding me with talk of True Love and finding a soulmate. At first I thought her and Charming were simply fanatics but then I realized everyone was silently watching, waiting to see who would be destined to be their Savior’s happy ending. 

Pan has Henry. As a child I used to dream of being lucky enough to have Peter Pan and Tinkerbell show up at my window and fly me far away from the world that never loved me. Now I’m riding across an endless ocean with you at my side knowing I’ll kill that immortal bastard if he so much as lays one hand on our son.   
Our son. That’s new as well. But your love for him was the first truth I learned upon entering this town. If I’m honest, it’s the only truth I’m ever sure of. So he’s ours and neither of us acknowledge the shift in our relationship that helped us get here.   
The pirate shackles himself to me before I can blink. He’s there, hopeful and persistent and Snow and Charming look at him like he’s the answer to their prayers. So I give in. One kiss that should have been a noncommittal act, a moment of selfish pleasure, ended up being the tombstone that sealed my grave. I can’t explain why the resigned anguish in your eyes makes my stomach roll. 

I genuinely don’t understand it. This obsession with fate and the desperation for a chance at making the “strongest magic of all.” It’s the closest thing to a religion this world seems to have. They don’t pray and long for heaven but they’ll sacrifice literally any part of themselves for a chance at having a True Love.  
Hook is easy. Deep down we’re both assholes who fear commitment and love to swim in shallow water, never broaching any complicated or possibly destructive topics.   
But even he is starting to talk of us as if we are destined to be, mentioning the future as if it’s set in stone and not something that could shift or change at any given moment.   
I can’t breathe. The shackles get tighter and tighter and I finally reach to break them off when I look up and see you with him. Robin. Your soulmate. Your happy ending.   
When you tell me about him I force a smile. You stare as if you can see the cracks in my facade, but you don’t say anything, you don’t push me to acknowledge the barely contained emotions that are threatening to swallow us whole. I smile and you stare. Finally you offer a soft smile of your own and I feel what fragments of my heart remained crumble to dust.  
I’ll keep the shackles. Better to remain tied to a life of mediocrity than hanging from a noose of a love I can’t have. 

I became darkness for you. A dagger bore my name and you were its sole defender. It’s harder to keep up a facade when every fiber of my being whispers “destroy,” “confess,” “be free.” I wonder if you know that I can feel it in my soul every time you stroke my name on the blade, every time you clutch it to your chest as if the cold metal will freeze your aching heart.   
You vow to save me and I know if there’s any way in existence to do so you will find it. I wonder if then it will be enough for us to stop pretending.  
At first I watched you. I hid in shadows as I assessed the genuineness of your happiness.   
The smile you painted on for forest boy never extended to your eyes. The kisses and moans you gifted him were choreographed reactions, faked to make it appear as if you were living in a destiny driven paradise.   
The tears you silently let flow each night in the shower and the hugs you bestowed upon Henry were the only parts of your mundane routine that held an ounce of truth.   
I stopped watching. If I saw you wake up, square your shoulders and accept your so-called destiny one more time I would kill Robin and Hook both in a vain attempt to set us free.   
I think you know because one night you corner me, grab my hand and tell me how lucky you are to be given a second chance with your soulmate. You ask me if I’m happy with hook and your plastic smile begs me to let this lie live. To not give in to the darkness and expunge them from all the worlds in existence. I wonder now if you were simply trying to save my corroding heart.   
But it’s too late. You may be the strongest and fairest of them all, but you’re still one of them. You secretly still worship the idea of Happily Ever After just as much as you desperately long for a taste of freedom. You made your choice, so I make mine.

They say everyone is destined to a happy ending. You and I know that’s not true.   
It’s my wedding day. I’m standing in front of a mirror trying desperately to find even an ounce of the woman I was before I drove into Storybrooke all those years ago. Everyone has left to go make final arrangements before I’m to walk down the aisle toward my “apathetically ever after.”  
There’s movement in my reflection and soon your eyes are there as well, just as empty as mine.   
We don’t look away, but I refuse to turn around. I’ve gotten so used to feeling numb. I know if I turn and see a glimmer of “what if” in your gaze I’ll break and this will all have been for nothing.   
We stare and stare before the soft notes of the wedding march reach our ears through the open window. Your shoulders fall before you raise your chin, fear and determination filling your eyes as they lock with mine.  
“Emma I nee—,”  
“It’s time,” I choke out with the best smile I can muster. I can’t let you finish that sentence. Can’t let you make a futile attempt at fighting against this “destiny” you all are so desperate to defend.  
After all, you and I both know not everyone get’s a happy ending.


End file.
